Ted Krueger
56 | Works with trillions of 'employees' every day in an environmentally friendly way.
Every Wednesday, the Sun-Times Business Section features a mystery occupation. See if you can guess the job before the end of the interview.
In a nutshell, what is your job about?
I take stuff that nobody wants and turn it into stuff that everybody wants, especially gardeners.
How big is your work force?
I work with trillions of employees who work 24/7. Never complain. All I have to do is supply them with food, water and oxygen and they're happy.
Don't they ever take a break?
They go dormant if the temperature is 20 below.
Many people do what you do in their backyards. How is being a professional different?
We do it on a much larger scale. We have 20 acres laid out in rows, 12 feet wide, 5 feet high and 300 to 400 feet long.
The micro-organisms are the same. We work with six functional groups of micro-organisms: aerobic bacteria, anaerobic bacteria, yeasts and molds, actinomycetes, pseudomonads, nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
Actinomycetes are my favorites. They are the beavers of the microscopic world. They break up the tough skeletal parts in plants. They are the organisms in the soil that give the forest floor that wonderful forest smell.
Talking about smells. I know you consider your work glamorous, but aren't you often up to your elbows in cow manure? Doesn't it stink?
I work with liquid cow manure. It's a vital ingredient in our mix. It smells like a dairy farm. Some people would find the smell offensive. I've worked around it all my life, so I don't even notice it. But we take the steps we need to in our process to manage odor.
Material is constantly being cooked and baked. We keep it at a temperature where all the bacteria are happy. If temperature is right, moisture is right and the oxygen is right, you won't have any odors.
Sometimes when I am grinding evergreen branches, it smells like in the North Woods. When I grind fresh grass it smells like new mown hay on a farm.
And our final product (Organimix) is odor-free.
Besides manure, what other ingredients go into your brew?
Yard trimmings, yard debris, branches, wood chips. Also leftover feed from the cows. Some of them are finicky eaters.
Is there a lot of turnover in your line?
We turn the piles over every single day with a tractor to control oxygen and moisture. If it's too wet, we turn it more often. If it's too dry, we add more liquid manure.
What are the advantages of your end product?
It stops the spread of people using chemical fertilizers on their lawns, which is out of control. Most chemicals are water soluble, and heavy rains wash them into the environment. (My product) supplies all the same nutrients and doesn't leach out in the soil.
Ted Krueger is president of McHenry-based Midwest Organics Recycling, the maker of Organimix compost. Midwest Organics Recycling will have an open house with free compost samples at 29353 N. Darrell Rd. in McHenry from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. May 19.